A Mystery Tail

Man Says He Threw First Rat On Ice

Eight months have elapsed and the trail is growing cold. Memories have dimmed. Witnesses have disappeared. Evidence might have been destroyed.

Still, the question looms like an avalanche over Panther fans: Who threw the first rat?

"Somebody, somewhere out there threw the first rat," said Scott Mellanby, a.k.a. Rat Man since his bloody rat trick in the Panthers' locker room on opening night.

Little did Mellanby know that he had an accomplice in the stands. A mysterious fan - possibly a loner - two games later tossed two rubber rats onto the ice after the Panthers scored a win against Ottawa on Friday, the 13th of October.

"You'd probably get a lot of people claiming credit if you asked them to come forward," Mellanby said back in March, before his team made the playoffs.

But no one did come forward. No Deep Throat. No manifesto. Like a nocturnal rat, this fan remained a slippery enigma.

Until now ... maybe.

In a written confession faxed to the Sun-Sentinel on Monday, Scott Celli, a construction worker from Margate, said he wanted to "set the record straight" about the Year of the Rat.

Celli, 26, said he stuffed the two rats into his pockets on the night in question, then scurried into Miami Arena with his buddy, Ray Spencer. They practiced pitching the rats before they got there.

Celli threw "the first rat" onto the ice just after the Panthers scored against Ottawa. The rat, he said, landed face-up behind goalie John Vanbiesbrouck's net.

"I ducked," Celli said. "I didn't want to get ejected."

(Celli said he threw two rats during the game - one plain and black and a second big one missing part of its torso.) "I balled it up and wrapped the tail around it. It just barely made it over the glass," he said. "At the time, it never occurred to me that my hand might have had a brush with destiny."

Celli claims that he wrote his initials and part of his social security number on the disfigured rat (it came in a trap.) But the truth may be in the trash.

"We dispose of the rats," said Jon Kramer, a spokesman at Panthers headquarters.

Still, Celli reveals some details that might only have been known by someone close to the rat.

Celli knew the first rat was thrown at the third home game. He said he threw the rats from his seat in the last row of the Panthers' goal end. (Fewer witnesses.)

Celli's story prompted a call to Art Dion, a member of the volunteer Rat Patrol, which helps sweep rats off the ice.

"I was the one who picked up the first rat," said Dion, 37, lending hope that he might be able to crack the case. But his memory is fuzzy.

"It was at Vanbiesbrouck's end of the ice. It had to come from somebody on that end of the arena. That part of the story is solid," Dion said.

"I remember one rat, maybe two. It was pretty crazy. I had no idea who threw it. It was a regular black plastic rat. I think part of the tail was severed, but I couldn't swear to it. It was a long time ago."

If Celli is the one, why didn't he come forward sooner? Why now, when Miami Arena has become a rat's nest for the Stanley Cup finals?

"Maybe for some glory," Celli said. "Maybe for some luck. I feel like I've done something nobody has done before. I think it has brought our team together."

As for Celli, he'll be at tonight's game, but you can bet he won't be carrying a rat in his pocket.

"I don't even bother anymore," he said, adding that he'll wear a rat charm instead. "You have inebriated people throwing rats even before the red light goes on. They're starting to ruin a good thing."

And the fate of the first rat? Celli thinks it "rats on" in the Panthers' locker room. Mellanby has one of the first rats - a plain one - but is it the first rat? Others whisper that it met its "disposal."